remake challenge : earrings

The premise of this challenge was to set myself a small budget, buy a few things at an op shop and then transform them into something new. 

I've been thinking about doing something like this for a while now, and to be honest I had thought about doing it with clothing first. This is inspired by those many creative people on social media, especially YouTube who do those Thrift Flip challenges. I thought I would use a dress or a top but the earrings called to me when I walked into the shop. (Definitely had nothing to do with the fact that I love earrings far too much and have far too many already. No, not at all.)

My budget was $15 for the two shops that I ended up going into and I found a few gems that I was really happy with. One of the places, the Salvos, have discounts for students so I used my student card and managed to spend under my budget by a few dollars.

I bought one necklace, a bracelet and four pairs of earrings to pick pieces from and change them up. I only ended up using, at least for these particular earrings about half of what I bought.

I particularly loved the stars from the red leather necklace and they were the first things that I started to disassemble from their original state.

I used a few different sets of pliers to take the star charms and chain off of the leather and put them aside to use later. This wasn't as easy as I had thought it would be, with the jump rings being far more secure than what they had looked. I managed to get them apart with a little more force, even if now they're a bit less circular and a little more oval.

Next thing I did was remove the beads off of the circular earrings that look to me to be vintage, and here came the hardest part of this challenge. Deciding what to add, or remove from the earrings to turn them into something new and exciting. I kind of wish that I had sketched out a few ideas in my journal beforehand, but I was committed to making up things as I went along.

I really enjoy the idea of using chains to accentuate pieces of jewellery, but I didn't want it to be the absolute focal point.

After this point there was a lot of swapping things in and out, moving the scales and stars around and before I knew it I hadn't taken any more progress photos and the earrings were actually finished. I ended up making a bit of a mess and I definitely wouldn't recommend doing something like this on the floor of your loungeroom like I did.

(Even if the photos and lighting were worth it!)

The premise of this challenge was to set myself a small budget, buy a few things at an op shop and then transform them into something new. 

I've been thinking about doing something like this for a while now, and to be honest I had thought about doing it with clothing first. This is inspired by those many creative people on social media, especially YouTube who do those Thrift Flip challenges. I thought I would use a dress or a top but the earrings called to me when I walked into the shop. (Definitely had nothing to do with the fact that I love earrings far too much and have far too many already. No, not at all.)

My budget was $15 for the two shops that I ended up going into and I found a few gems that I was really happy with. One of the places, the Salvos, have discounts for students so I used my student card and managed to spend under my budget by a few dollars.

I bought one necklace, a bracelet and four pairs of earrings to pick pieces from and change them up. I only ended up using, at least for these particular earrings about half of what I bought.

I particularly loved the stars from the red leather necklace and they were the first things that I started to disassemble from their original state.

I used a few different sets of pliers to take the star charms and chain off of the leather and put them aside to use later. This wasn't as easy as I had thought it would be, with the jump rings being far more secure than what they had looked. I managed to get them apart with a little more force, even if now they're a bit less circular and a little more oval.

Next thing I did was remove the beads off of the circular earrings that look to me to be vintage, and here came the hardest part of this challenge. Deciding what to add, or remove from the earrings to turn them into something new and exciting. I kind of wish that I had sketched out a few ideas in my journal beforehand, but I was committed to making up things as I went along.

I really enjoy the idea of using chains to accentuate pieces of jewellery, but I didn't want it to be the absolute focal point.

After this point there was a lot of swapping things in and out, moving the scales and stars around and before I knew it I hadn't taken any more progress photos and the earrings were actually finished. I ended up making a bit of a mess and I definitely wouldn't recommend doing something like this on the floor of your loungeroom like I did.

(Even if the photos and lighting were worth it!)